Microbial Community Models for Measuring Survival and Persistence of SynBio Microbes in Soil

Rock, Alexis

Student Work

Microbial Community Models for Measuring Survival and Persistence of SynBio Microbes in Soil

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Genetically engineered microbes (GEMs) hold the potential for many different soil applications. However, the relationship between GEMs and bacteria of the natural soil microbiome is unknown. This research utilizes growth curves and co-cultures, analyzed by flow cytometry, to develop assays for defining relationships between the engineered bacteria P. putida and soil strains C. freundii or B. thailandensis. Here we show that flow cytometry can be used to correlate monoculture growth with co-culture growth to differentiate neutral or non-neutral relationships under a variety of growth conditions. We observe that the growth temperature and media composition affect the nature of co-culture relationships. However, more experimentation, including addition of a viability dye and cytometric analysis by FlowJo will be critical in producing more concrete definitions of the relationships between the species tested.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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